For Women, Parity Is Still a Subtly Steep Climb

2011/10/08ISN’T it just a matter of time before women reach parity with men in the upper ranks of the corporate world?

Enlarge This Image

Johanna Goodman
After all, women in the United States now collect nearly 60 percent of four-year degrees and they make up nearly half the American work force.

But despite headline-grabbing news like the recent naming of Meg Whitman as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, a look at the numbers shows that progress at the very top has stalled. Last year, women held about 14 percent of senior executive positions at Fortune 500 companies, according to the nonprofit group Catalyst, which focuses on women in the workplace. That number has barely budged since 2005, after 10 years of slow but steady increases. Read more at The New York Times